I Have Seen the Others
by Katta
Summary: Power of Three: Gair and Hafny try to gross each other out with their cultures' traditional food.


Hafny crossed his arms and looked at the caterpillars in disgust. "Absolutely not."

Gair fought hard not to laugh. "Think of it as another step to further cultural understanding between our people."

"I committed morgery for you!" Hafny protested, leaning back against the wall at the side of Gair's windowsill. "Isn't that enough?"

"No you didn't," Gair said, amused.

"Well, almost." Hafny watched with horrified fascination as Gair took another caterpillar, dipped it in sauce, and put it in his mouth. "I am not eating one of those things."

"You'll like it," Gair said, "I promise. Anyway, you lot eat crayfish. That's _much_ more disgusting."

"Crayfish are delicious."

"They're creepy little horrible things that live in the mud and try to snap your toes off. _And_ they eat worms, so eating a crayfish is really just like eating a recycled worm, which isn't very different from a caterpillar if you ask me."

Hafny snorted, which made it impossible for Gair not to laugh. "All right then. I'll eat one if you promise to eat crayfish."

Gair opened his mouth to agree, but stopped and frowned. "I can't."

"Oh? What happened to cultural understanding?"

"No, I mean – I can't. It would make me ill." His frown deepened. " _Very_ ill."

"How could you know? You've never tried."

Gair just looked at Hafny, willing him to understand without explanation. There was something fundamentally awkward about having to tell his friends he had foreseen something. He didn't know where the embarrassment came from; Ayna didn't seem to have it, and Ceri revelled in the attention.

Fortunately, Hafny could be trusted to grasp a situation quickly. "Oh. I see."

"I'm sorry," Gair said, and he was. Spending time with Hafny was comfortable in a way few of his other relationships were, even with the jabs about disgusting food. The Sight muddled things.

"You're getting better at that."

That was true, though in Gair's mind there was a very fine and sometimes invisible line between 'better' and 'worse'. He was annoyed at himself. Considering how much he had hated being ordinary, he knew he should be happy now that he was different. "Sometimes it frightens me," he admitted.

Hafny's gaze flickered, and he looked ashamed. Gair didn't need Sight to make the connection. "It scares you too?"

Hafny nodded, his pale cheeks taking on a pinkish hue. "I'm sorry."

"It's fine." It wasn't, but it couldn't be helped.

"It just seems so... _big_. And you get so serious... I mean, more than you are already." Hafny elbowed him in the ribs, grinning.

"Shut up," Gair said, pushing Hafny lightly. It was impossible to be gloomy for very long in the company of someone as mercurial as Hafny. He wondered if that was why Gest was so pleased every time Gair went to see Hafny. Not that he would have expected his father to tell him to stop playing with Dorigs – that would have been incredibly hypocritical, for one thing – but the enthusiasm was a bit surprising. Maybe he was just relieved that Gair had friends outside the family, especially now that Ayna and Brad spent so much time together and Ceri had discovered girls. In a way, it made Gair feel a lot younger than both his siblings. In another, he felt a lot older. And like Gest, he was grateful for Hafny and Gerald; even more grateful that Hafny would actually go through the trouble of joining Gair at home, despite the hateful glances and muttered words thrown in his direction even now that the war was over.

"Fish eyes," Hafny said, interrupting Gair's thoughts.

Gair blinked. "Huh?"

"Would fish eyes make you ill?"

The very thought of eating fish eyes, that i looked /i at him from the plate, made Gair shudder, but he thought about it and was forced to admit: "No. It wouldn't. Drat!"

"So it's a deal?" Hafny asked.

"It's a deal."

Hafny reached forward and took a caterpillar, carefully, as if it would bite him. He squeezed the head off the way Gair had done, and dipped the caterpillar deep in the sauce. Very slowly, he put it into his mouth and scrunched his face up, taking a first chew. Then his expression changed.

"Told you," Gair said.

"Apart from the sauce, it doesn't taste of much," Hafny said. He chewed thoughtfully. "It's a bit like... tea."

"Well, they're dried and they eat leaves, so in a way I suppose it _is_ tea," Gair said. "Next time you should try the honey glazed ones. They're a real treat."

Hafny froze. "Do you mean to say," he asked, "that there are _sweet _caterpillars, and you never saw fit to mention that before?"

"Oh!" Gair said. He had to laugh at his own stupidity. "I forgot how much you people like sweets."

"'You people' would like sweets too if you could only have them five times a year," Hafny pointed out.

Gair jumped down from the window and held up a hand to Hafny. "Come on, then. I may not be able to find you any honey glazed caterpillars, but I know that my mother is making jam."

"Jam?" Hafny asked.

"Berries boiled in sugar."

"Oh, _excellent_!" Hafny said, taking Gair's hand and jumping down.

"You know," Gair said thoughtfully as they walked off, "we should try this with Gerald. Except I don't know of any disgusting things that Giants eat."

"Ooh, good idea!" Hafny laughed. "I hear they eat stuffed pig guts."

Gair stopped short. "_No_!?"

"That's what I've heard." Hafny's eyes glittered. "And congealed blood. In a pudding."

"That has _got_ to be a vicious rumour."

"Perhaps. It can't hurt to ask Gerald, though."

"Forget it!" Gair said, horrified. "I'm not eating that!"

"Not even as a way to further cultural understanding?"

"Ugh!"

"Or to see his face when we ask him to eat caterpillars and fish eyes in return?"

Gair wavered. "Well... maybe..."

"Besides," Hafny said, "for all we know you could be right. It might be a rumour."

"I sincerely hope so," Gair said. Shyly, he patted Hafny's shoulder. "Come on. Let's go ask Mother for some jam."

He shook his head in disbelief at what Hafny had told him. Pig guts and blood. Yuk!


End file.
